This invention relates to improvements in tube cutting apparatus which renders such apparatus simple and economical to fabricate, more efficient and satisfactory in use, adaptable to a wider variety of applications and unlikely to malfunction. The improvements provided facilitate the application of work material of substantial length. Once the tubing is set, the invention provides for an extremely fast, accurate and automatic shearing thereof into segments of pre-set length. It enables a variety of products ranging from bands of ring-like form as narrow as 0.050 inch and sleeves to conventional short lengths of tubing.
The prior art is best represented by U.S. Pat. No. 2,837,156. While such apparatus remains suitable for many tube cutting applications, the construction thereof and the controls as there incorporated lack the efficiency, the flexibility and range of use now desired for many applications. The prior art apparatus is particularly lacking in respect to its ability to shear extremely short lengths of tubing or to handle, with any great degree of efficiency, work material of substantial length. In such applications, the nature of the work supports embodied therein as well as its feeding and limit controls have evidenced characteristics resulting in a lack of precision in their function and timing. This can lead to waste and high cost of production in a number of high speed shearing operaions. One particularly objectionable feature of the prior art apparatus has been the nature and character of its means for locating work material in the position required for cutting. The same has not only been costly to fabricate but space consuming and a contributing factor to malfunction and requirements for maintenance.